Righteous02 - Mighty and Strong (13 page)

“I don’t like your tone of voice,” Mr. Hoover said. He sounded shocked, as if he were the aggrieved party. “If you were serious about wanting to work things out, you wouldn’t come here with that argumentative tone.”

“Work things out? You’re hauling my stuff to the curb. What do you expect me to do, bring a plate of cookies and ask your forgiveness for not being late with the rent but for maybe, possibly having some trouble coming up with the money,
when the rent is finally due
?”

Mr. Hoover took out his wallet. “I’ll tell you what. I never wanted any trouble, and I want to prove that I’m doing the decent thing. Here’s five hundred dollars. Once all your things are out you can give back the key and get some friends or family to get your things off the front yard.”

“Five hundred dollars? What kind of man are you?”

She could scream, she could make a scene. And then someone would call the police. She was paid through the end of the month, and even then there were rules. The police would have a hard talk with Mr. Hoover and he’d be forced to let them back inside, leave them alone until he had a court order.

Except that the cops would show up, take one look at her, and know she was from a polygamist church. And their hearts would turn to stone before they heard the first word out of her mouth.

And where’s your husband? Out of town, is he?

They’d exchange glances. Probably hiding from the law, they’d figure, or shacked up with one of his other wives. And maybe they’d take her children, who were homeless now, after all. Wouldn’t help that Daniel and Leah were crying, that they’d hear the baby screaming from two blocks away. Messy diaper, hungry, face caked in snot.

Could be that when Jacob returned they’d figure everything out and get the children back. But who knows how long that would take? She’d heard stories from other women in the church. The Division of Children and Family Services didn’t follow the same rules. They didn’t have to prove you were guilty to take your kids. It was up to you to prove you were
not
abusing them.

“How about seven hundred?” Mr. Hoover said. He removed a couple more bills from his wallet, waved the money in front of her face. “You can get a start somewhere else.”

“Our deposit is eleven hundred. This doesn’t even cover that.”

“If I rent the place out, I’ll prorate back your deposit. Minus cleaning fees, of course.”

“And in the meanwhile? Seven hundred won’t get me into another apartment, not even close.”

“You could stay at a motel.” He nodded vigorously. “That’s right, a motel. You can do that until you figure stuff out.”

Without a credit card? Looking like a polygamist, with three kids in tow? Sure, she could find some fleabag place to cram into, but how long would that last? A week?

She closed her eyes, blocked the sound of her stuff moving onto the front yard, the crying kids, the baby screaming. A dog barked next door and she heard a car slowing, its tires crunching gravel, as it passed by the house. Fernie said a silent prayer.

Heavenly Father, please help us. I beg thee, we are desperate. Please, show us mercy. Tell me what to do. Thou knowest I love thee, Lord, I seek to obey thee always.

Except she hadn’t, had she? In spite of her talk to Jacob, the way she taught her kids, it hadn’t even occurred to her to pray for help. Not until she was standing on the curb, next to her possessions, broke and homeless. Maybe if she hadn’t been so hard-hearted the Lord would have shown her a way out.

“Mrs. Christianson?” Mr. Hoover said.

I am so sorry I didn’t pray for help earlier. But please don’t punish my children. Show me what to do, and I promise I will do it, just help my children.

“Are you going to take the money?”

She opened her eyes and saw the seven hundred dollars clenched in her landlord’s fist. He didn’t want trouble, no, anything but that. Give the woman a few bucks and you can wash your hands of the problem.

Fernie looked at her belongings stacked next to the street. It was just stuff, wasn’t it? The Lord didn’t care about possessions. The same went for the flower boxes she’d planted, for the freshly painted cabinets that had made her so proud. Or the little patio in the back where she and Jacob would cook hamburgers on a hot summer evening. She’d set her heart on material possessions and look where it got her.

And suddenly, the solution popped into her mind. The Lord gave it to her.

She took the money and looked away rather than see the relieved, satisfied look on Mr. Hoover’s face. That would only make her angry.

Seven hundred. It was enough to buy bus tickets.

First thing, she had to feed and care for the children. She went to the boxes and found diapers, wipes, changes of clothes for the children, and her temple undergarments, plus another dress. She shoved these into a duffel bag, then hoisted it over her shoulder and turned with her crying children from the apartment. Better not look back.

“And you’ll come back for your things, right?” Mr. Hoover called after her. “Mrs. Christianson? You’ll come get your stuff, right? When will that be? Mrs. Christianson?”

Chapter Fourteen:

“My name is Fear-Not. I am not afraid to kill or be killed. This blood I do freely shed in the name of He who is most holy and just.”

Thus began the meeting of the three conspirators. The three men who would bring about the Millennium and the great and dreadful day of the coming of the Lord.

It was dusk at the Gilgal Gardens, a few blocks from Temple Square. The small, gated public park was filled with all sorts of weird and wonderful sculptures, most strange of them being the sphinx with the head of Joseph Smith. A reminder of darker days from Mormon history, when the leadership took masonic oaths and fought persecutors.

Those days had returned.

Fear-Not turned to the other two men. “From this moment forward, thou shall be known as Zeal and thou shall be known as Vigilant. Bow thy heads and repeat after me.”

They bowed their heads.

“We are not afraid to kill or be killed.”

“We are not afraid to kill or be killed,” they repeated.

“This blood do we freely shed in the name of He who is most holy and just,” Fear-Not said.

They repeated with fervor, “This blood do we freely shed in the name of He who is most holy and just.”

“Good, now tell me what you’ve seen.”

“There are at least three agents,” Vigilant said. He fiddled with his combover. “And there’s a gray van that keeps parking around Temple Square, or one of the lots by the Conference Center. Different place every day. Probably surveillance.”

Vigilant wasn’t a random name. The man could walk through one of the crowded visitor’s centers and come out with an accurate count of men versus women, children, foreign-looking sorts, tourists versus locals, sister missionaries, and so on. If someone or something looked out of place, Vigilant would note it.

Too bad he looked so out of place himself. He’d shaved off his beard, tried to dress like a mainstream Mormon in a cheap suit, but it didn’t help. There was something about his face that said polygamist.

Zeal, on the other hand, looked like any young guy you might see downtown. Generic features, neither good looking nor ugly. Average height, average build, average dress. He’d have been perfect strolling in and out of Temple Square except that he was the opposite of Vigilant. A herd of elephants could trot beneath Eagle Gate, right down State Street, and if you asked if he’d seen anything unusual, he would shrug and look puzzled.

Zeal had other uses.

“What about the girl?” Fear-Not asked.

“The missionary? She’s watching us,” Vigilant said. “And there’s something funny about her. I could be wrong, but I think she’s one of us. Raised in the Principle.”

“I wondered the same thing. So how did she get to be an LDS missionary?”

“I could grab her,” Zeal said. He rubbed his hand against the oversized nose of the Joseph Smith sphinx. “Bring her here and question her. Or put her in the back of the truck and toss a tarp over her. Drive her up to the hills.”

There was something intense about that rubbing and a gleam in his eyes. Fear-Not wondered just what form this “questioning” would take. The boy was the sort of weapon that needed to be guarded carefully, he decided.

“No, too dangerous. It’ll be hard enough to get to the senator. If they double security, the whole thing could fall apart. Last thing we need is for them to start watching us.”

“I’m afraid that’s already happened,” Vigilant said. “This last time through, I swear we were being tailed. The missionary girl probably tipped off Temple Square security and they called the FBI.”

“So we’ll stay on the sidewalk and streets. We’ve learned what we need. Three agents we can outwit. Only one of us has to get through. That will set everything else in motion.”

“What about the van?” Vigilant asked.

Fear-Not looked around the rock garden. It was a public park, after all, and sometimes people came in, even at dusk. They might wonder what the three men were discussing in such urgent tones. “Vigilant, watch the van, see who is inside. I have a feeling we’ll need to know.”

“What about me?” Zeal asked.

“Keep your body strong.” Fear-Not almost added something about staying mentally alert, but that was probably asking too much. “Stay pure and only associate with those who keep themselves likewise pure. Only a pure vessel can act as the Lord’s destroying angel when the time comes. Do you understand?”

He bowed his head. “Yes.”

“Good,” said Fear-Not. “That is all.”

The three men left the rock garden a few minutes apart from each other. Fear-Not left last and when he came around the side of the Masonic temple, not far from the gardens, he saw a young Mormon-looking couple looking at the pair of sphinx that guarded either side of the stone staircase leading to the front door. He wondered if they’d ever seen the one with the Joseph Smith face. Probably had no idea it existed. No idea about their prophet’s connection with the Masons.

And that was the problem with the mainstream church and its members. The Kingdom of God couldn’t be boiled down to a missionary pamphlet or Sunday School lesson. The Lord’s ways were hard, His people human and the church’s history messy. From the time the LDS church abandoned plural marriage, they’d been running as fast as they could into the embrace of the world.

And where did that get them? They could renounce the Book of Mormon itself, claim that Joseph Smith was just an ordinary man, and it wouldn’t matter. The gentiles would still think Mormonism was a weird little sect. And in the meanwhile, wanting to be liked meant that the Salt Lake leaders led millions into apostasy.

The young couple looked nice enough. They gave Fear-Not a friendly greeting before going on their way down the sidewalk, the woman pushing a stroller with a toddler.

He felt sorry for them. They didn’t know better, and would only look on in terror and confusion as the apocalypse swept over them. He wanted to grab them and shake them by the shoulders and cry, “Wake up, don’t you see? Your city will lie in dust. No two stones will sit one upon the other. Repent, before it’s too late.”

But they would only turn rude. The wicked never listened to warnings from the prophets.

Chapter Fifteen:

I’m secretly engaged.

Emma Green must have repeated this fifty times during the day. It gave her a thrill every time she remembered what Jacob had told her.
You won’t be fifteen forever.

She was working a foot-operated sewing machine and ran the stitches off the pocket of her father’s pants. Another time, she lost track of the flour she was measuring for the daily bread and her mother snapped at her to stop daydreaming.

Emma shared a room with two younger sisters. That night, after the three of them said their prayers and repeated their scriptures, then turned off the lamp, the other two girls took to gossiping about Caleb Hunter, a boy near their age.

“Can you two shut up and go to sleep?”

“I can’t believe he smiled at you like that.” A sigh. “He’s got the cutest dimples.”

“I just want to pinch his cheeks.”

Emma groaned. “You two are so immature.”

“I want to do more than pinch his cheeks.”

The other sister squealed. “Ooh, that’s naughty.”

It went on like this for about twenty minutes. Emma wrapped her pillow around her head and tried to block them.

When her sisters finally stopped talking and their breathing turned slow, regular, Emma rolled to her side and tried to sleep.

To get to Brother Timothy’s compound—where Jacob was currently a guest—one would have to go down the stairs to the lowest level, go outside, and walk left through the arcade to the archway that passed beneath the library. From there, another left and around Brother Timothy’s family courtyard to the guest rooms, where the prophet kept new members of the church until he found them permanent quarters.

But Emma worked it out in her mind and realized that after all the stairs and arcades, she’d be on the other side of her bedroom wall and down a level. If only magically there would be a doorway here where her bed pushed against the wall, and then a stairway, her future husband would be lying in bed no more than twenty feet away. It was too much to stand, knowing that.

An hour went by, maybe two. She could not get comfortable in this stupid bed. And it was too hot.

Emma had her nightgown tucked between the mattress and the wall, in case she needed to go out to the bathroom. She fished it out and pulled it on. She slipped out of bed and made her way to the door. One of the other beds creaked and she froze.

What are you doing?

A tight feeling worked its way up into her body. A
wrong
feeling. Wasn’t that the spirit telling her to turn around and go back to bed? But what would it hurt? She just wanted to walk past his room, then she’d come straight back.

It was dark in the courtyard. They’d left the modern world behind when Dad decided they were moving to Zarahemla to join the Church of the Last Days. There were no phones, no television (yes, they’d been one of
those
families, even though Father hid the TV whenever family or friends came to visit), and no lights other than candles and lamps. They didn’t even have indoor toilets, which had been a real treat during their first winter in the Manti Mountains.